


Ash Wednesday

by clearlykero



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Angst, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-11-29
Updated: 2012-11-29
Packaged: 2017-11-19 20:09:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/577182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clearlykero/pseuds/clearlykero
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone has a mountain of secrets and a universe of regrets. A series of shorts about Kise and Aomine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. because i do not hope (to turn again)

**Author's Note:**

> All the titles are from T.S. Eliot's Ash Wednesday. Written because I just-- really like hurting the characters I love.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Each part was written with a song on loop in the background; this installment's was Fujita Maiko's Takanaru.

They fight so much, it’s not even a relationship any more. It’s become an endlessly long storm with intermittent sun. Ryota wishes he could have left this behind after high school, wishes he could have just been content with Yukio and _hates_ himself for thinking it because Yukio had deserved so much more than three years of loving Kise Ryota. There are so many things he wishes were different— but that’s the thing. Ryota just wants things to be different without him having to do anything about it. He wants Daiki to change without having to change himself.

Daiki’s sitting across from him, leaning his chair back on two legs. The atmosphere is tense and thick with words that neither of them are willing to say.

“Why can’t you just— we’re not in high school any more, we’re _working adults_. Or,” Ryota corrects himself, “at least I am.” The argument isn’t anything new, the content’s been exactly the same the last twenty times they had it. This time, though, the situation is a little bit different.

“So? What the fuck is your problem? You’re earning a fuckton of money doing your modeling shit, aren’t you?” Daiki looks two words away from breaking the table separating them, much like Ryota feels. He’s desperately trying to ignore the voice in the back of his head screaming how he still wants to push Daiki up against a wall and ravage him. Daiki lets his chair crash to the floor. “Don’t shut up. I know you wanna say something, fucking _say it_ ,” he snaps.

“Yes, I am earning money, but it’s not enough to support both of us _and_ save for when I can’t do this.” Ryota swallows convulsively. “I quit basketball, and my face is only going to last so long. I’m not— we’re not young any more, Daiki.” It’s not the first time he’s said the latter, but it’s the first time he’s mentioned basketball to Daiki since they finished college. He still talks to Midorima, still goes bowling with Kuroko and Kagami, still sees his old teammates and none of them resent him for quitting. It was just the best decision he could have made at the time— the only thing he thought he could have done. Because he doesn’t want to chase Daiki forever. Daiki can dabble in going pro, Daiki can get dropped from his team for fucking the coach, Daiki can do whatever he wants and Ryota doesn’t want to see him do it. All he wants is to be the one that Daiki comes home to, and now he _isn’t even that_.

“What am I to you, honestly? I don’t know why the _fuck_ ,” he’s raising his voice now, and Daiki narrows his eyes, “we’re in this sham of a relationship when you can’t even keep your dick in your pants if you’re not with me!” Ryota’s voice cracks at the end. He breathes in slowly. He’s not going to cry.

“You said you were okay with this,” Daiki says. His voice is even, calm; Ryota hates it.

“I’m not,” looking up, willing the prickling heat in his eyes to stay there, “I only said I was because you’d leave if I didn’t.”

“So, what— it’s supposed to be my fault that you got upset over something you didn’t bother telling me about? If you’d said something—”

“It doesn’t _matter_!” Ryota shouts, standing up. He’s lost the battle with his tears. Knuckling his eyes angrily, he turns away from Daiki’s stricken expression. “It doesn’t matter,” he repeats, softer, “because we can’t do this any more.”

It’s been nearly four years of the same thing, again and again and again. Nothing but basketball tied them together in the beginning; why should it be any different now? He’s given up the one thing they had in common. Ryota should have seen it coming the minute he did that.

“That’s it? You’re done with me? All your,” he pauses, and Ryota imagines he can hear Daiki’s heartbeat, “your love poetry about the fire in me and shit—”

“ _Shut up_ ,” Ryota snarls, whirling around to face him again. He’s flushing hot with anger even as his heart aches because nothing’s changed, he still feels the same way he did when he wrote crappy poems and hid them in Daiki’s shoes. “You don’t— you don’t get to bring that up now. All your fire ever does is burn me and the rest of your toys, why are you even surprised?”

He doesn’t mean it, but it spills out anyway. The line of Daiki’s jaw tightens.

“I’m surprised because you’ve only ever been good at copying, right? Who the fuck are you copying this love bullshit from, because it sure is hell isn’t me.” Even as the words leave his mouth, Daiki winces like he wants to take it back.

Suddenly, Ryota is so, so tired.

“All right,” he says, quietly. “Fine.”

It’s funny how easily four years can be wrapped up and put aside. There’s an accusing quality to the silence as Ryota gets his keys, as he packs a suitcase, as he looks everywhere but at Daiki’s eyes. He knows that if Daiki says one more word, just a simple ‘sorry’, _anything_ — he’ll fall again. So he gathers his things as quickly as he can, slips into his shoes, walks away.

The door can’t be slammed. It glides back into place with a whisper and a click, and that’s how it ends.


	2. and pray that i may forget

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soundtrack: SID - Rain. This is the bit with Aomine/OFC, and a guy I snuck in who'll be making a reappearance later.

His heartbeat is deafening in his ears, so loud that he can’t hear anything over the sound of it trying to explode out of his chest. He can’t hear the soft noise that he lets slip when he sees Ryota just across the street, closer than the other man has been in months. Ryota is holding Tetsu’s hand, fingers entwined. Aren’t Tetsu and  _Kagami_  together? It’s not like he likes them being together, he’s still stubbornly possessive of Tetsu, but. Ryota is— he doesn’t understand. His own hands feel like they belong to someone else entirely, nails digging painfully into his palms. There’s Kagami coming up to them now; he doesn’t seem angry. He joins Tetsu and Ryota, looks furtively around and completely misses Daiki skulking in the shadow of an alley. 

The cigarette he lit up before seeing them is slowly smoking itself in his left hand. Daiki has a thing to do, he knows he left the apartment for a reason. But it’s hard to remember anything at all when Kagami leans in past Tetsu and presses a long kiss to Ryota’s lips. 

Of course, Daiki thinks distantly, it must have been Kagami’s idea. He’s half American already, he would’ve been way more comfortable with the idea of more than two people in a relationship than either of the other two. Though Tetsu probably didn’t need much convincing. When Kagami pulls back Ryota is blushing to the roots of his hair. They fall in step together, Ryota sandwiched in between them. 

Ryota looks happy. Daiki hasn’t seen that expression on his face in years.

He remembers what he’s come out to do, now. He’d wanted to go see Sendoh, maybe shoot a few hoops with him since his place is just 5 minutes away. That guy’s the only one of his teammates he gets along with. Everyone else avoids him for bullshit reasons (and they  _are_  bullshit reasons, he’s not a fucking slacker any more). Daiki looks up the street again, at Ryota’s receding back. Kagami has his arm around Ryota’s waist.

“Fuck this,” Daiki says out loud. He turns around smartly, dropping his cigarette to smoulder on the ground. Saki lives in the other direction.

Saki is their assistant trainer, bleached-blonde hair and upward-flicked eyeliner and starry-eyed-infatuated with Aomine Daiki. She doesn’t remind him of anyone, not when she moans his name in a sweet, high voice as he pushes into her and mouths at the swell of her breasts. Not when she grips his shoulder with soft, uncalloused fingers. Daiki isn’t using her. He’s just— he closes his eyes and concentrates on the feel of her warmth enveloping him. He’s on autopilot when he pulls off the condom and strokes himself, coming on her stomach. 

It’s empty, like a lot of the things he does now. Daiki thinks he probably would have felt the same just jacking off in his toilet at home. 

“Daiki?” Saki is lying on his chest, looking up at him with concerned eyes. He opens his mouth and realizes he doesn’t even know her first name.

“Are you—”

“I’m fine,” he says shortly.

And he  _is_.


	3. there is not enough silence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Watanabe Kazuhiro - Temple of Soul. Kise baby :(

So maybe he’s not quite as okay with this whole thing as he pretends he is. He loves Tetsuya, loves him with all of of his heart and soul and burnt-up body, but he doesn’t know if he can share after all. Taiga can do it himself— he can kiss Kise and fuck him and take him apart. But it’s different when Tetsuya does it.

“He needs me,” Tetsuya had said.  _Me_ , not  _Us_. It isn’t as though Taiga has held any illusions about how the seven of them were and still are with each other. He’s spent a few too many nights by himself because Tetsuya was off with Akashi, or talking Midorima through another insecurity attack, or doing god-knows-what with every other member of the Generation. Taiga just thought that maybe after sharing for eight years it was finally slowing down.

Then things blew up between Kise and Aomine, and there was Kise in their home,  _wrecked_.

“I know,” Taiga had replied. “I’m with you.” But he hadn’t known what he was getting into. 

Kise is beautiful, that’s the thing. Taiga’s been attracted since way before. A lot of the time he spent with his left hand was also time he spent thinking about glossy lips wrapped around his dick and the flutter of long eyelashes under golden hair. Everyone else from the Generation of Miracles (and a shitton of others, honestly, because Taiga  _was_  a hormonal teenager) had their time in his head, but no one as often as Kise. He didn’t even think about Tetsuya as much, though that changed after they started dating.

Taiga isn’t sure how much of his attraction is just physical and how much of it is because he really likes Kise in that way: sex with Kise is great, he loves Kise as a friend— but he just can’t be certain about anything romantic. And he knows that Kise knows. Kise’s not an idiot; he’s well aware that Taiga’s feelings for him will never hold a candle to Taiga’s feelings for Tetsuya. Usually Taiga can ignore this— they all can. But sometimes Kise will fold in on himself and lie on the couch quietly, staring at something in the distance and flailing only half-heartedly at No.2’s assaults on his hands and feet. Sometimes it’s bad enough that when Taiga kisses him he doesn’t kiss back.  ~~(But he always responds when it’s Tetsuya.)~~

“Ryota,” Taiga says, quiet. Kise’s arm rests across his eyes. The only thing that moves is his chest, quick rise-and-fall of his shallow breath.

There doesn’t seem to be anything to say that hasn’t already been said. Tetsuya is at work— some sports day thing at the kindergarten. Taiga wishes fiercely for his presence; he always feels like he’s on a knife edge when he’s alone with Kise. Polyamory isn’t as easy as the books make it look. He doesn’t know how to make it better, can’t think of a single way to fill the sudden cracks in his relationship with Tetsuya. Taiga doesn’t let himself consider abandoning Kise. He can’t.

He’s just reaching out to touch Kise’s cheek when Kise sighs.

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs. His voice is suspiciously thick. Tension hangs in the air; Taiga fucking hates that he isn’t Tetsuya in this moment.

“The hell are you sorry for?” Taiga asks brusquely. He doesn’t really mean to be so curt, just. The past couple of weeks have been a strain.

“I know what I’m doing,” Kise whispers. “I know what it’s doing to you and Kurokocchi.” Taiga hasn’t heard Kise use the nickname since college. Something is particularly off today, and he’s uselessly angry that he’s only noticing it now.

“You’re not doing any—”

“I am.” Kise doesn’t raise his voice at all, still that tiny whisper, but it silences Taiga anyway. “I am, and I’m so— I’m sorry.”

Taiga wants to be near him; he pushes his face into the crook of Kise’s neck so they don’t have to look at each other. He can’t argue with Kise, as much as he’d like to. It’s crap, it’s fucking crap but it’s  _true_. Kise throws a wrench into the well-oiled gears that make up Taiga and Tetsuya, and Tetsuya’s too entwined in the seven of them to be objective about it. Taiga’s just too goddamn stubborn.

“I wish I could,” Kise’s breath hitches, his body shuddering. Taiga presses closer. He doesn’t know what else to do. “I wish I was stronger.”

“You are strong,” Taiga says immediately. There isn’t a lot he knows for sure about their relationship, but this is the one irrevocable fact he knows about Kise. “You’re so  _fucking_  strong, don’t even joke. You think just because you left Aomine that makes you weak?” Kise flinches when Taiga says Aomine’s name.

“Look, I dunno what you’ve been thinking all this time, but leaving takes guts too. Shut up and listen,” Taiga adds when Kise inhales like he wants to say something. “I know you love him. You’re like me with Tetsuya, ‘cept Aomine’s a douchebag and don’t even argue with that. Takes something else to walk away from the person you poured your soul into, you know?”

Kise is silent. Taiga swallows down more lecturing. He’s said his piece. 

“Thank you,” Kise says eventually, soft and tired. 

“Yeah,” Taiga says. Maybe something’s eased, a little; maybe it’s just temporary. He hopes he can make this work.

When Tetsuya comes back, the living room is dark, and Kise’s shoulder is wet with tears.


End file.
